Not everyone who has a savant skill I would equate with a…

Savant syndrome and autism, I think, are not disorders of brain structure, but they're disorders of brain function.

— Darold Treffert

A savant, by definition, is somebody who has a disability and, along with that disability, has some remarkable ability. Prodigies and geniuses have the…

— Darold Treffert

Savant syndrome is not a disorder in the same way as autism is a disorder or dementia is a disorder. Savant syndrome are some…

— Darold Treffert

When I met my first savant in 1962, I was impressed by the abilities in these youngsters who had severe disabilities. They appeared to…

— Darold Treffert

Savant syndrome, characteristically, consists of left hemisphere dysfunction coupled with right hemisphere emergence, and what you see in the savant are basically right brain…

— Darold Treffert

Your modest savant smiles as he says to his admirers: What have I done? Nothing. Man does not invent a force, he directs it.

— Honore de Balzac

I used to be treated like an idiot, now I'm treated like an idiot savant.

— Martin Cruz Smith

There is a small segment of people with autism that have savant skills, where they can memorize entire maps of whole entire city. They…

— Temple Grandin

I'm not sure I'm the only savant with high IQ or with an above average IQ. Again, it may just be that we don't…

— Daniel Tammet

The term syndrome generally appears to be a constellation, or collection, of similar traits or behaviors within an individual. So, savants do have sort…

— Darold Treffert

There are some cases that have come to my attention where there's been a head injury, or getting struck by lightning and surviving, with…

— Darold Treffert

The ways in which acquired savants show up are usually the same ways that congenital, or non-acquired, savant syndrome shows up. They tend to…

— Darold Treffert

With respect to why some acquired savants are musical, and some are good at the arts, and some are mathematical, why aren't they all…

— Darold Treffert

There are people at the extremes who aren't able to do anything musically, and then others sort of fall in the middle. And the…

— Darold Treffert

“There's no difference between a madman and a professor...it should be clear to you in the way they dress, act and think.”

— Michael Bassey Johnson